The Crisis of Connection: Being With Students with Severe Disability Labels

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Centering Disabled Students in K-12 Education: Reimagining Access, Belonging, and Ways of Knowing

Abstract

In this paper, we explore what it means to be with students labeled with severe disabilities in schools characterized by disconnection and exclusion. Drawing on Disability Studies in Education, we theorize relationality through everyday interactions that challenge normative schooling practices. Using data from a three-year postcritical ethnography in segregated classrooms, we analyze moments of connection between a student and teacher/researcher to illustrate being with as a radical, embodied practice of attunement. These moments disrupt institutional norms and reveal disability as a site of possibility for transforming relational practices in education. We argue that being with fosters belonging and learning, offering a vital counter-narrative to deficit-oriented paradigms and inviting new understandings of human connection in schools.

Author

• Charna D'Ardenne, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill